I'm Tired
by oldmule
Summary: Harry, Ruth, angst. Three words that always seem hand in hand.
1. Chapter 1

**Harry's office immediately post Series 9, post Lucas. **

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><p>"How are you?"<p>

"I'm tired, Ruth," he sighs, "Tired of death. Tired of watching countless colleagues sacrifice themselves. Tired of betrayal. Tired of wanting. Tired of fighting. Tired of self control, of self denial."

She opens her mouth to speak.

"And yes, I am feeling sorry for myself, Ruth, but I don't care."

He sits down, defeated, exhausted. Weary of his life, his job and the claustrophobia of his office pressing upon him.

"It will get better."

"Will it?"

"You know it will."

"Maybe I don't want it to."

"So what do you want, Harry?"

"I want ….."

"What? Or is it that all the things that you don't want are the only ones that you've actually known for the last thirty years?"

"Perhaps."

The silence extends between them.

His head rests in his hands, his heart heavy and empty.

"Harry."

He fails to move, speak or even look at her.

"Do you really want to wake up in the mornings with nothing to do, no decisions to make?"

"Yes, I think I do, Ruth."

"And what about the rest of us? Will you so easily leave us behind?"

Now his eyes lift to hers.

"I wouldn't choose to leave … any of you behind."

"But you would?"

"What do you want from me?" he snaps suddenly, "You don't want me to leave, but tell me, what is there for me here, Ruth?"

"There's work, there's what we do, the important things that we do every single day, there's Dimitri, Tariq … me."

"No. Not you. Not in any real sense!"

"Harry, I…"

"You what, Ruth? You what? Tell me something. Something real, for once."

The challenge now in his eyes, fuelled with passion and frustration, suddenly no longer lacking in energy.

"I don't want you to not be here," she says quietly.

"Why?"

She hesitates.

"WHY?"

Suddenly he is standing right in front of her.

"Because it's not the same without you…I'm not the same without you," she breathes.

He wants to enjoy the thought but he cannot.

"Maybe you just let yourself think that, Ruth. You managed well enough without me in Cyprus."

He knows as soon as he has said it that he has gone too far.

He knows as soon as her palm strikes his cheek that he has gone far too far.

Of all the times between them she has never struck him, never even had the thought to strike him and now that she has, she immediately regrets it, regrets that he has made her behave in such a way.

They both stand looking at each other.

All is silence.

"I can't do this anymore, Ruth."

"Neither can I."

"Then I should go."

"Yes, you should."

He turns to the door and leaves knowing he should apologise but failing to do so.

She remains, angry, knowing that she should not cry but yet she does.

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><p><strong>Sorry for the angst, not sure where this came from.<strong>

**Possible resolution if anyone fancies one?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for all the lovely, thoughtful, erudite and rather poetic reviews. There will be one than one chapter to go I think.**

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><p>"Good Morning, Miss Evershed."<p>

It is far from good. As far as she can imagine it to be.

"Morning, John," she manages to the security guard who scans her bag every day and seems to be there as often as she. "Has Sir Harry come through yet?"

"Yes, Miss."

He takes her bag with a sad smile.

"I'll miss our little cricket chats."

"Our what?"

"Cricket, Miss, I'd update him on the scores."

The next question she didn't want him to answer.

"But why will you miss them, John?"

"With him retiring. No one else is that interested, or they all have those 'apps' on their phones so they know what's what. Not Sir Harry, he was such a busy man he usually had no idea until I told him. Sometimes he wouldn't believe me at all, thought I was making it up when I told him the innings had collapsed and we'd bowled 'em all out."

Ruth had stopped listening somewhere around "retiring".

"Thank you," she says, taking her bag. "See you later."

The pod doors swish open. Her steps are straight towards his office.

It is empty.

"Where's Harry?"

"Morning to you too, Evershed," Dimitri pointedly replies.

"Where is he?" It is not a morning for pleasantries. Not now.

"I'm sorry, Ruth, I thought you knew."

"What?"

"He's gone. Resigned. Came in early to collect his things, said that he wanted no fuss, that he'd called the DG last night and that he'd spoken to you."

Ruth stares at him.

"Did he not speak to you?"

She shakes her head then stops.

"No… well… yes, in a way. He said he was tired and that there was nothing here for him."

Dimitri stops himself from saying that she is here.

"And…?

"I slapped him."

"You slapped Harry!"

"I know," she answers curtly and turns to her desk.

She sits her hands fidgeting, rubbing together, over and over, over and under, under and over.

Oh god, she knows this feeling. This hollow, empty, heavy ache that will not leave her, that has settled in the pit of her stomach and makes her want to retch.

The feeling she had grown so accustomed to once before.

Then she had left with the taste of his lips as a memory. A trace still there, still lingering when, on her return, her eyes had first settled back upon him. In the moment she knew she should be worrying about George and Nico she had felt only the memory of those soft, full lips.

And now the memory that would not leave her is the sting of her palm against his skin.

Her gaze does not leave his office, willing the unwillable. She wonders if before, he too may have stared at her empty desk and wished her there.

She reaches for her coat and bag and strides towards the pods.

Dimitri watches her and something in him hopes that he will never see her back here again.

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><p>She has no real idea where he will be when there is no answer to his doorbell but something draws her feet and pulls her towards the park nearby.<p>

And there he is. Alone.

She sits beside him.

"We need to talk."

He nods, not surprised to see her as he waits for the latest reason why she cannot forgive him, the latest reason why they cannot be together.

"And Harry, we need to be honest with each other."

And it is then that he knows he is doomed.

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><p><strong>A big conversation to come.<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

She takes a deep breath.

"I have always struggled with my feelings for you."

"I think I could have told you that, Ruth."

Her look is harsh and he feels the cold radiate from her.

He sighs and buries his gaze back into the green grass beneath his feet.

"And I am sorry if that has made things difficult," she continues calmly.

"If?"

"Harry, please."

"But you didn't struggle with your feelings for George?'

"You have no comprehension of my feelings for him," she bites back.

"Or the banker, or whatever he was, whose voice you fell in love with and pursued to a concert with Malcolm posing as your brother."

Her face is stricken.

"How the hell do you know about that?"

He looks away.

"I asked Sam to keep an eye on why you were taking files home."

She glares at him and though he can't see her, he can feel the anger.

"What a fool, what a young, sad, foolish girl. Is that what you thought Harry?"

"No."

""I'm sure!"

"If you must know I wished I were younger and that it might have been me."

She is silent, surprised.

"Now who's the sad one, Ruth?"

She has no answer for him.

"You fell for him in a moment. It was easy. Doesn't that say everything?"

"It says nothing. Stop putting words into my mouth," she snaps.

"Fine," he mutters.

"Fine," she adds and they sit silent, stubborn, seething.

"You wished you were him?" she says eventually.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you were vibrant, intelligent, beautiful."

It silences her for a moment more.

"You never said anything?'

"Why would I?" he asks, "I was your boss. It was not for me to go chasing my staff, no matter how much I would like to. And I could see no reason why you would feel the same about me."

"I felt something."

He looks at her. And the masochist in him needs to know.

"It was a crush, I think."

He wishes she hadn't told him.

"It started as a crush, or that's what I thought it was. And somewhere it changed, I don't know where or when. I just know that when you asked me to help you prepare for the board for DG that I suddenly realised what it would mean if you weren't there anymore."

For the first time in days she sees a small smile escape him.

"What?"

He doesn't answer.

"Harry, what?"

"You told me I paced."

"In a good way," she adds hurridly.

"Yes, in a good way…..and for the first time I wondered if you… cared a little, Ruth."

"I did."

"You did?"

"Yes. You know I did, Harry."

"I didn't know. I hoped. I wanted to believe. So many times I wanted to reach out. When you stood by Danny, stroking his face, grieving, grieving for the first time, I wanted so much to reach out to you and I knew then how much …."

"how much…?"

"I felt."

"And still you said nothing?"

"Self control, Ruth, self denial."

"Then what made you ask me to dinner?"

"Juliet."

"Juliet!" Her surprise is considerable.

"She asked me if I was in love with you and told me that you were in love with me."

"She said that?

"Yes. I didn't believe her, I hoped, but that was all."

"But I said yes."

"Was she right, Ruth? Did I even come near him, the banker, singer?"

She shakes her head, stunned by the insecurity of a man of such confidence.

"Perhaps not," he adds, sadly. "I always seem to misread you, don't I? I thought your reserve when we were having dinner was nerves, was shyness, as wonderfully endearing as it was. I should have known you were uncomfortable with how other people would see it."

"I …."

She fails to continue.

He sighs.

"You don't understand, Harry."

"No, I don't. Do you, Ruth?"

"No. I …. I was … I can't explain what I felt, how I felt. You were talking about this perfect companion and looking at me and you were you and yet so different, so relaxed, so open and I felt excited and thrilled and frightened and … overwhelmed."

"So overwhelmed that the next day you run for the hills," he adds sadly.

"You were the boss, there was something horribly seedy about what everyone was thinking."

"It was a world away from seedy, Ruth," he says firmly.

"But what they thought wasn't, younger woman, older man, boss, employee, it was wrong. So much gossip, all eyes on us. And then Havensworth and them all expecting something, all watching, waiting."

"No one was watching, no one was waiting."

"You were," she says directly.

"And you ran, desperate to be away from me, again."

"I couldn't …."

"Couldn't what? Couldn't bear to look at me, certainly."

"You were…you looked….I knew what you wanted. You kept looking at me like …like a man …"

"That's what I am, Ruth."

"…Who was making it very clear what he wanted, what he expected."

"I expected nothing, I wanted everything, I said little. Do I need to apologise for that?"

"No."

"Do you blame me?'

"No."

"Was it so abhorrent to you?"

"No, Harry, no. Not abhorrent, how can you think that?"

"Because you ran"

"Because I felt too much, because it was what they all expected, because it was so predictable and because I wished I had the courage to….."

He holds the thought and so does she. The possibility and the loss sit between them.

"Ironic then that the only time I had the courage was when I was leaving," she says eventually, "and stranger still that it suddenly seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss you."

He looks at her, that kiss, as ever etched, seared, burnt upon his memory. Always.

And she sees the extreme of sadness on his face.

"You should have let me say it, Ruth"

"Do you think I could have got on the boat if you had?"

"But I needed to say it. To you. Out loud. Not to Scarlett, not to an empty bottle of scotch, not to the heavens. To you. So that you knew."

"I knew, Harry."

"But _I _never did, still, now, I don't know."

She looks away from him, overwhelmed, trying to reign in the feelings that threaten to overcome her.

He continues, relieved to be unburdening himself, to speak openly, honestly, whatever the outcome now.

"Every day I looked at your desk. Everyday I wished you there. Everyday without fail. And I would have buried every feeling, never mentioned it again if I could have you back, back on the grid even if I had to watch you with someone else…. anything. And I got what I wanted….George."

She looks sharply at him.

"And I understand why Ruth. Really I do. I could see as soon as I saw him why you were with him. Tall, young, strong, handsome. What chance had I ever stood? And what chance would I ever stand again as you looked at me with such revulsion, such pain. You thought it was easy to make those decisions Ruth? It was the hardest thing I've ever done. The hardest choice …to break your heart."

She looks at him and feels the world starting to unravel, feels herself starting to unravel.

"Oh god, Harry. You have no idea.'

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><p><strong>Next part of conversation been worked on imminently!<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

**Again, thanks to all for lovely reviews. **

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><p>"Yes, George was tall, handsome, strong… loving."<p>

Harry really didn't need the last recommendation.

"He made me happy."

For a moment she seemed immersed in memories.

"When I felt lost and lonely he was there. When I told him 'no' he laughed and said I'd change my mind. When I told him I wasn't interested he was persistent…so persistent."

A smile crept across her features.

"Being with him was easy and Nico, well, Nico gave me something I'd never known, something wonderful. Life was so…"

"Simple and elegant?" he suggests.

She looks at him recognising her own words. Recognising too the pain he is trying to hide, the pain she sees all too easily.

"Harry do you know the difference between 'love' and 'being in love'?"

He nods.

"What?" she prompts.

He looks away.

"My wife and you," is his answer.

And it is as close as he has ever come to telling her and yet so far from how he would want it to be and he, Harry, is so far from being him, George.

"I didn't know," she says, "not really. But I found out. In Cyprus I found out."

He doesn't want to be here anymore. The catharsis that was their conversation is no longer so. It is pain and hurt and he would rather be suffering with a bottle of scotch.

"I understand, Ruth," he says quietly, hoping she will stop.

"No, Harry you don't," and she does not stop.

"George taught me compromise. George taught me that I could be happy with a loving man. You taught me what it was to want to give up everything to save someone. To save the man I had fallen in love with somewhere along the line. Somewhere, some moment, I don't know when or how, but there, somewhere. You gave me that Harry. George gave me love and a life. Do you understand now?"

He gazes at her, at the admission, at the understanding, she sees the pain ebb away and then flow back.

"And I destroyed the love and the life."

She looks at him.

"That's what I did, Ruth."

"No, Harry, that's what _I_ did."

He gazes at her, confused.

"I lived a life that was a lie. Lived as a person I wasn't. Lived the legend. I tried to love a man, whilst wishing for another, wanting another. And in doing so I killed the man and destroyed the life of his son."

"No, Ruth, you can't blame yourself for that."

"I can and I do."

"Mani killed him. Not you."

"But I can't get rid of the guilt, Harry."

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><p><strong>Sorry this is short, more to come tomorrow.<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**This is the last chapter, there may be an epilogue if I can think of anything to say.**

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><p>"When you came back to the grid you seemed happy. Not happy. Obviously. After what had happened, but settled. Almost content to be there."<p>

"It felt like I'd come home."

She sees a shadow, something, cross his face.

"Does that sound wrong, Harry?"

"No, Ruth," he smiles softly, "you _were_ home."

"I was glad of the distraction. It was easy to lose myself in work again. Easy to bury all that had happened by immersing myself in terrorist threats… the Bendorf Group….Nightingale, one thing after another really."

Harry sits quietly and she knows something is bothering him.

She turns her eyes to him, silently prompting.

"What you said…about me. Did I destroy that?"

"What I said?" she asks.

"How you felt….about me."

He can't say it in case she rescinds it, in case he misheard it, willed its truth from simply wanting it so much.

"Destroy it?….no, Harry," he breathes again "….not then."

He takes the blow.

Her hands wind in her lap, wind and worry.

"The first moment I saw you in the warehouse, after all that time away, a moment that was filled with threat and danger and do you know what I thought? All I thought. Was that the last time I had seen you, I'd kissed you. Even as I asked about George and Nico I was thinking about standing on a dock long ago, kissing you. How wrong was that! How unfair was that? How totally, totally wrong."

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

"Why are you sorry?"

"I just am. Sorry for causing all this," he looks at her intensely.

"You didn't cause it, Harry. You complicated it. But you didn't cause it."

"I tried to hold back, Ruth. I tried to be there but not to push you, not to expect anything….but it was so good to have you back. Such a relief to have you burst into my office, like a puppy that had found its ball."

"A puppy?" a wry smile is on her face.

Must she always mock his metaphors.

"Okay, a cat that's got the cream," he accedes. "Better?"

She nods.

"But as much as I told myself that you couldn't….couldn't possibly….there were times that I thought that you still… felt something, Ruth. Something. For me. Did I read it wrong?"

"No, Harry."

"You'd look at me sometimes. Once with a softness, a look I'd seen before. You touched my hand. You asked me for a drink. I hardly dared to hope. Did that happen?

Almost imperceptibly she nods.

"Why Ruth?"

"Because I still loved you."

She says it simply, quietly, as she watches the mix of emotions wash over him.

"But you said 'no'."

And there it is, all his confusion, all she has done to him in that one small sentence. How can she tell him that and then refuse him.

She shakes her head but cannot answer.

"I don't understand. I've tried Ruth, I swear I've tried, and I know I've behaved badly, petulantly, but….. I don't understand."

He is lost, like a small boy. Lost and confused.

"What kind of person am I, Harry?"

He opens his mouth to tell her the wonder of the person she is but she cuts him dead.

"Callous, selfish, cold. That's what I am."

And now he cannot stop her.

"A man who is practically my husband is dead and I have ripped him and his son from their lives, implicated them in mine and destroyed them. And what do I do, Harry? Do I grieve? Do I mourn him, their loss? No. I go back to work and smile at you, I think about you. I want you. And what do you do? You ask me to marry you? You ask me to do what George so wanted me to do, what I refused, casually, jokingly, with whatever reason I could find because I knew I couldn't marry him. I could be happy with him but not marry him."

"But why didn't you tell me that?"

"Because I didn't know."

"Didn't know?"

"I still don't know, Harry. It's all so complicated, so difficult to unpick. I feel consumed by the guilt of it. I don't deserve to be happy. I had my chance but it was always doomed. We were always doomed."

His breathing is heavy and she can't face him now. They both gaze out at the park, eyes buried in the distance, seeing nothing.

"What do _I _deserve, Ruth?"

She doesn't answer.

"I've killed people. Saved people. Hurt people. What do I deserve? Something? Nothing?"

She stares ahead.

"You've never even given me a chance. One chance, maybe. Dinner. But you've never let me love you. George got the chance, and I know what happened to him was wrong and shouldn't have happened but every day things happen that are so wrong, so undeserved, so unfair. And you can't take the blame for everything, you can't take it all on your shoulders." He turns to her and he so wants to take her hand but he does not.

"You have to forgive yourself Ruth."

"And if I can't?"

"Then it will continue to eat at you, until it _is _your turn. Until you sacrifice yourself to ease the guilt."

"But it is my fault."

"You have no faults, Ruth. You are the single most warm, compassionate, incisive, talented, beautiful woman I have ever known."

She glances at him, surprised, touched but eager to disagree.

"Don't dare disagree with me. I know. It's been my study, my dissertation for many years. And it's true."

"You think flattery will work, Harry?" her face is still serious.

"I've tried everything else."

"Have you?"

"Perhaps not. I haven't tried begging…yet." He smiles a cockeyed smile and watches her hands, busy still worrying at the cloth of her coat.

"I'm tired, Ruth and I've had enough loss. I don't want to watch another officer of mine die. It's enough. I've done enough."

"That's what Lucas said," she says quietly, "about me."

"That you had done enough?"

She nods.

"Give me the chance, Ruth. Give me the chance to love you, to make you happy. Let us put this right."

"Right? How can we make it right?"

"By being together. What we were meant to be all along."

"I can't."

"Why? Dear god, why, Ruth?"

"Because…."

She has no more,

"You see those hands? Those small, cold, fidgety hands?" he glares at her.

"What's left of my life, my future is held in those hands, Ruth. There is no 'because'. I know my timing is about six years out, but better late than bloody never! Be brave, Ruth. Take the chance. Give me the chance….. Please."

His eyes are wide, his breath heavy, his heart exposed.

Her hands cease their incessant movement.

He waits, hopes, worries

All is still.

Her eyes turn to him finally. Her hands lift from her lap. They slide around his face, cradling him as she did once before.

"You know what's really in these small, cold, fidgety hands, Harry?"

His eyes beg to know.

Her eyes fill with tears.

"…..All that I've ever really wanted but never dared to have."

"Then dare. Take it, have it, have me."

"Will you make it right, Harry?"

"Yes, I'll make everything alright, Ruth. Always."

The small boy who walks by looks at the couple on the bench and scowls, disgusted by two people too old to be seen snogging in public.

His mother glances away, strangely moved at the intensity of a moment she feels privileged to have seen. And sadly she wishes that she was as much in love as they.


	6. Epilogue

**Thank you for all the very thoughtful reviews. I have gone for a rather radical change of tone. The fluff to follow the angst. The scene setting becomes obvious and as it's dialogue only, the rest you'll have to fill in for yourselves!**

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><p>"I'm tired."<p>

"Get out of bed."

"But Ruth, I'm exhausted."

"Then maybe you should try sleeping more and …"

"Is that want you want? Really? Because you gave me the distinct impression otherwise, last night."

"Just get out of bed, Harry."

"Why?"

"Because we're late."

"I've got nowhere I have to be, so how can I be late?"

"But…'

"No. Ruth, you get back into bed."

"It's ten o'clock!"

"See? Far too early."

"Harry!"

"Get back in here, Ruth. Now."

"You didn't mention that you were going to be so…."

"Masterful?"

"….Belligerent."

"But irresistible with it?"

"No, Harry, just annoying."

"I didn't tell you I was going to be insatiable either, did I?"

"Harry, let go."

"No."

"Stop doing that."

"Nope."

"I thought you were exhausted?"

"I suddenly find I'm not. Now keep still."

"We've got things to do."

"We've got nothing to do….but this."

"Harry…."

"Mmmm"

"Harry, please!"

"Please, what, Ruth?"

"Please... just… oh, what the hell, please just don't stop."

"Argh! My good god, Ruth are your hands ever warm?"

"Rarely. And you'll find that they're seldom still."

"Oh…mmm…oh, yes."

"Harry are you happy?"

"At this moment, exceedingly."

"I meant generally."

"Yes, Ruth with every single breath. Are you?"

"Mmmm. Especially when you do that. Where the hell _did_ you learn to do that?"

"Never you mind."

"You were right, Harry. This is how it should always have been."

"Ruth, did I tell you how much I love you?"

"No, you've not actually said it."

"Okay. I'll tell you later…I'm just a bit busy at the moment."


End file.
